Element-web: Linux Riot tray icon interactivity issues

[BloodyIron]

I think this may be a feature regression in the last few months, because I recall it being the way I prefer in an earlier version.

I'm on Ubuntu, with XFCE4, and when I left or right click on the "systray" icon for Riot, both come up with the menu to open/quit.

I think the left click should just open/minimize it (depending on its state), and right click bring up the menu.

It's really annoying having to click on the pull-down menu to open it.

Small change, but would be really appreciated.

Please? :)

[lampholder]

If this is a change, this could be another unintended side-effect of the electron version bump. Unfortunately I think the systray icon lives in a bit of a blind spot for us - there's no automated testing on it, and I don't know if anyone on the team regularly uses electron on a linux machine with a systray :\

So - thanks for this report, and if anyone has any ideas how we can keep an automated eye on systray behaviour I'd love to hear about them :)

[banholzer]

I have the same issue and its quite annoying having to click multiple times to show/hide riot.

edit:
Perhaps it has to do with the "platform limitations" stated on https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/master/docs/api/tray.md

But I still wonder why it had worked before.

Platform limitations:

On Linux the app indicator will be used if it is supported, otherwise GtkStatusIcon will be used instead.
On Linux distributions that only have app indicator support, you have to install libappindicator1 to make the tray icon work.
App indicator will only be shown when it has a context menu.
When app indicator is used on Linux, the click event is ignored.
On Linux in order for changes made to individual MenuItems to take effect, you have to call setContextMenu again. For example:

[BloodyIron]

Yeah it did use to just be left click to open/close, right click for menu. That worked plenty well for me!

[gerroon]

This is a harsh drag for the elderly users of Riot.

[BloodyIron]

still really annoying

[gerroon]

@BloodyIron, I need to vnc to my mom's computer and click on Riot in the tray properly for her so that I can talk to her, she cant do it as of now due to this bug. It is that bad :(, it is so sad :(

She cant call me as well due to this issue.

That one extra click makes such a big difference for elderly people, especially for those with vision issues.

[Pointedstick]

In KDE Plasma with Riot version 1.0.1 this now works as expected.

[BloodyIron]

Hmm just tried in XFCE with 1.0.1, still doing the menu thing.

[pacien]

Looks like a regression in Electron itself: https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/16462, https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/14941, https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/13087.

[akontsevich]

Think #7553 and #7624 could be closed for now: works fine if libappindicator3 (libappindicator-gtk3) not installed. Unlike #6767 and #8819 (icon look) should be reopened and fixed: stopped to work even if I run with Exec=XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=Unity riot %U. For now icon looks like blank black square in KDE which is weird. I think local electron version used to build riot should be manually patched like Skype done previous year, where icon looks good for now with whatever appindicator is used or not, Unity desktop set or not. Otherwise we can wait too long it will be fixed in Electron. Makes sense?

[BloodyIron]

Uhhh? If I left or right click it still brings up the menu. Still very much interested in left click open, right click menu.

[akontsevich]

Left click open, right click menu works fine for me as expected in suse KDE without libappindicator3 installed. What disto/DE/packages installed do You have?

[gerroon]

I get the same menu with either left or right or middle clicks. I do not get why Electron changed this behavior on Linux because this works as expected on Windows.

[MedicMomcilo]

@akontsevich I'm not sure I understand.

If libappindicator is dependency for many programs, how can we uninstall it?
Wouldn't that leave us with unusable DE?

[akontsevich]

@MedicMomcilo Probably You're right. libappindicator is not a problem only in KDE. In Mate, Cinnamon, etc seems a problem.

[foresto]

Confirmed on an Xfce desktop (Gtk widgets) that has both the Notification Area and the Indicator Plugin installed on the desktop panel.

It looks like the Riot icon is appearing in the Notification Area (not the Indicator area), which I think implies that it's using a Gtk StatusIcon rather than a Gtk AppIndicator. I'm not sure what it uses on a Qt desktop like KDE, but surely something different from either of those, which could explain why KDE users are not seeing the bad behavior.

And agreed: Having to fiddle with a menu when I just want to open Riot from the tray icon is an annoying hassle. I should be able to just click the icon, as I do with other apps that have a tray icon.

[foresto]

This problem also occurs when using xfce's new Status Notifier Plugin.

It's still present in Riot-web 1.5.10.

[gerroon]

I think this is Electron shit storm all over again, they constantly f....k stuff.

[akontsevich]

This problem also occurs when using xfce's new Status Notifier Plugin.
It's still present in Riot-web 1.5.10.

For me problem is fixed: https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/13087#issuecomment-589041302 in KDE while libappindicator3 is not necessary and nor used any more.

[t3chguy]

I believe this might actually be fixed with the whole electron tray mess right now

[akontsevich]

It will be broken with this https://github.com/electron/electron/issues/21445 soon again.

[t3chguy]

Duplicate of https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/3133

[BloodyIron]

@t3chguy I don't believe this is a duplicate of #3133 as we have (until the electron version bump) been able to interact with it. Just not left click show/hide.

[t3chguy]

They all boil down to the same underlying issues between Electron and your DE/WM, there is no point tracking them as 3 here. There isn't anything Riot can really do about them.

[BloodyIron]

@t3chguy yeah I see that reading the electron reversion thread. Well, hopefully that brings back the left click convenience functionality.